“Last year, I was like, ‘Man, you don’t really need OTAs. You can train on your own.’ But you really need these,” Miller said. “The National Football League is so competitive, so the more time that you can get to perfect your craft with your teammates” the better.”

Miller refuses to use the distraction of his contract negotiations as a scapegoat for why he didn’t win Defensive Player of the Year.

“I pretty much didn’t have an offseason last year with so much stuff (going on),” Miller said. “And I wasn’t going to use that as an excuse. I lost by one vote. … I got close this year. If we were able to make the playoffs or I was able to make a few more plays, who knows where we would have been?”

True.

It stands to reason that Miller is hungry and that attitude will prove to be contagious moving forward.

“I’m not going to stay stuck in the past. I’m moving forward,” Miller said. “This Von coming up is going to be the best Von that I put forward. It’s going to be my best year. That’s what I’m going for. I have a full offseason, full OTAs, I’m going to be here training every single day. It’s not all that noise on the outside from the contract and this and that and doing all this stuff. Not that that was a big deal for me, but now it’s just all football. I’m here, I’m settled in and it’s time to go play.”

With the L.A. Chargers regrouping, the Oakland/Las Vegas Raidersdealing with public relations issues and the Kansas City Chiefs fighting to find their postseason mojo, Denver could indeed return to prominence.